Locus Magazine has listed the nominations for this year’s World Fantasy Awards. The winners will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention between 30 Oct - 2 Nov 2008.
Of note is the list of nominees for Novel:
Fangland, John Marks (Penguin)
The Gospel of the Knife, Will Shetterly (Tor)
The Servants, Michael Marshall Smith (Earthling Publications)
Territory, Emma Bull (Tor)
Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada; Roc)
Now, you’ll know that I’m a HUGE Guy Gavriel Kay fan, but there’s simply no way Kay’s going to win with Ysabel. Well, of course I’d like him to win. However, Ysabel was far from his best work, and frankly I’ll eat my chair if he does win.
Gosh, how time flies. All of us has been busy in real life, and there hasn’t been a lot of activity on the website front, although I hope that will change soon.
The show has been going on, despite the apparent lull… I have 3 shows recorded in our hard disks at the moment, but finding the time to edit and package them together has been more difficult of late due to our (primarily my own) real life commitments.
No matter, I’ll get to them soon, I promise, so hang on to your hats. To whet your appetite, here’s what we already have, and awaiting the unveiling by my ambling self: Ep 14: Graphic Novels! Ep 15: Non-fiction! Ep 16: Sex!
The episode titles are hopefully sexier than the ones written here, but no guarantees, except maybe I won’t be as exclamatory.
Catherynne M. Valente, author of Tiptree Award winning The Orphan’s Tales series of novels, is guest writing on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog. She just put up a piece there on How to Write a Novel in 30 days. A lot of thought-reengineering required, and a lot of emphasis on the two factors which is required for any sort of progress: high levels of stress as a motivation, and putting your reputation up at stake.
I’m kidding. Almost.
Fun read, undoubtedly.
Invaluable if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, for instance, or when you’re joining a short story writing competition :wink:.
I’ve hijacked the role of the Harry Potter correspondent for Bookbabble for this update, to bring you the highly excitable news of JK Rowling waving once again her magic wand.
Guardian has reported that Rowling will make available The Tales of Beedle the Bard, with all proceeds going into The Children’s High Level Group (CHLG). Rowling co-founded CHLG in 2005.
To commemorate her return to her legions of fans, the publishers seemed inclined to release what seems like countless editions of the book - collector’s editions, trade editions, in addition to Amazon’s own ’special limited’ collector’s edition that features more goodies.
Check out Wikipedia’s comprehensive article on the background of the work.
Not much to say about this yet, just thought I’d post it for your viewing pleasure. Next step is to read some of them or should we just assume Rushdie will win?
The Longlist
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture John Berger From A to X
Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Joseph O’Neill Netherland
Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence Tom Rob Smith Child 44 Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole
I think we all agree that Amazon and other online bookstores leave a lot to be desired when it comes to emulating the book browsing experience in bookstores that we all know and love.
If you ever wondered how it *could* be different, and wanted to see how the Internet, or indeed, computers in general, could offer up a similar browsing experience, then check out Zoomii.com. From the site’s founder:
…I love bookstores. Spending afternoons
wandering the shelves. Happening across great books I didn’t even
know existed. But it’s an experience I never found online. Online
bookstores are wonderful. They’ve got amazing prices, huge
selections, and they’re open all the time. If you know exactly what
you want, they’re perfect. But somehow I kept coming back to the
bookstore just to browse. Zoomii is my attempt to bring online as
much of the real bookstore experience as possible.
It offers users a view of a huge number of bookshelves that they can navigate to using the mouse. On each bookshelf you’ll see the covers of books, similar to perhaps your bookshop browsing, but seeing more than just the book spines. Users can click on individual books, read up the profile (as you would in Amazon), or purchase it outright. If the bookshelves view is too daunting, there is a helpful search function too. I found the site easy to move around and manipulate, and is a wonderful effort.
But those coming onto the site expecting the same browsing experience as the one you get from bookstores will be disappointed, as ultimately the computer screen in comparison is severely limiting. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the site, of course. On the contrary I think the site goes a long way in addressing the browsing experience online. But most importantly, I think the site addresses an even more important aspect of online book buying - a new way to look for, and discover, brand new books.
All that said, Zoomii has to be experienced to be believed, so go get yourselves to the site and check it out.
I was looking on the Internet for more information about Gollansz’s Ultimate Fantasy Series when I accidentally stumbled upon Orionbook’s Moviezone section of their website, which hosts interviews with some pretty interesting authors.
Among some of the more interesting ones they have:
Michael Palin talks about the making of New Europe
Interview with Joe Hill author of Heart Shaped Box (after our Ep13 show where he was mentioned by Gem)
Lynch talks about his books The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies
Nick Griffiths discusses his book Dalek I Loved You (for the Bookbabble gang!)
Richard Morgan, author of Black Man, and Ian McDonald, author of Brasyl, in informal conversation.
Ian Rankin talks reflects on the last Rebus novel, Exit Music.
Author, Jeff Lindsay reveals the inspiration behind everyone’s favourite serial killer, DEXTER.
p.s. finally found the Ultimate Fantasy Series, not exactly in its own domain, but rather appended to their list of Fantasy Masterworks series of books. I’ll talk about these later.
Bookbabble Episode 13: Jason vs Dracula! Recorded 16 July 2008 Babblers: Gem, Bjorn, Donny Synopsis: To commemorate Episode 13, the babblers made horror and superstition as a theme for today’s show. Didn’t eventually talk about superstition, but plenty of horror movie talk, horror-related reads and some recommendations. Also, terrifying developments on Nicole Ritchie’s new book, Bjorn’s thoughts on the terrifying Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, and is there such a thing as a soul?
Show Length: 58:38 mins
Special Note: Look up the reference to The Big Lebowski yourself!
Ok, I said I’d let you know. So listen up: tor.com has finally debuted, and it looks really nice, especially for a fantasy geek that I am. From the site:
Tor.com, a site for news and discussion of science fiction, fantasy, and all the things that interest SF and fantasy readers, is an initiative of Tor Books and of the Macmillan group of publishers. It presents original short fiction, new sequential art, extensive art galleries, and commentary on science fiction and related subjects by a wide range of writers from all corners of the science fiction and fantasy field. Its aim is to provoke, encourage, and enable interesting and rewarding conversations with and between its readers.
For months leading up to this moment, tor.com offered up a free ebook every week, in addition to a couple of book cover art as wallpapers. Until July 27, all previously offered books and art are up for grabs, so get your butt over there pronto. Included in the list are new Wheel of Time writer Brandon Sanderson, Daniel Abraham, Kage Baker, John Scalzi and Hugo award winner Robert Charles Wilson.
